


graves at my heels

by Pomfry



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And the fact I refuse Robin war, Batdad, Because I greatly dislike the We Are Robin movement, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Bruce is more open with his emotions and so I ducked a few arcs, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, I have created the first Duke Thomas & Bruce Wayne tag, Just not Bruce, Scratch that I HATE the We Are Robin movement, The canon divergence is literally just things I added in for batdad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Which is weird considering that there's tags for him with the batkids and everyone else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 04:46:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: The first time Bruce Wayne sees a grave, it's innocent, and he goes home with his parents to eat, and he yells a cheerful goodbye over his shoulder....The second time Bruce Wayne sees a grave, he's cold.He's cold and Alfred's hand is on his shoulder, and there's rain pounding on his head, and his parents aren't there.(In which graves are always with Bruce, but he gains family along the years, so it's okay.)





	graves at my heels

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Reason Number 1 of why I haven't updated with cosmos in my soul. Reason Number 2 will hopefully be coming out shortly.
> 
> BUUUUT I'm really satisfied with this. I added everyone I could-not Babs, since I don't know, I just don't really consider her a member??? More like a family friend right now, though that might change.
> 
> And I couldn't fit Terry in, but I'll be adding a little slapstick thing later, if I can.

The first time Bruce Wayne sees a grave, he's four and holding onto his parents hands, laughing as they swing him in the air between them.

They reach two large stones, and Bruce has to lean all the way back until he almost falls over to see the top.

Mama catches him as he overbalanced, and sets him upright, kneeling beside him as he stares at the names carved into the headstones.

“These are your grandparents, sweetheart.” Mama says softly, and she's as gentle as ever as she nudges him forward.

“Hi!” Bruce giggles, waving a little hand in greeting.

Papa stands beside Mama, eyes wet, and Bruce drags him forward. “Grandma and Grandpa wants a kiss.” He tells his father seriously, and presses his lips to his palm before slapping it on his grandma's name before doing the same to his grandpa's.

Papa smiles and does what Bruce did, and then Bruce talks and talks to the gravestones of his grandparents,  chattering on and on about so many different things that he barely stops to take a breath.

The first time Bruce Wayne sees a grave, it's innocent, and he goes home with his parents to eat, and he yells a cheerful goodbye over his shoulder.

 

...

 

The second time Bruce Wayne sees a grave, he's cold.

He's cold and Alfred's hand is on his shoulder, and there's rain pounding on his head, and his parents aren't there.

Mom and Dad are in the ground, not up here in the rain with Bruce as they should be, and it's a loss Bruce feels keenly.

Bruce has always felt like his parents were invincible.  Untouchable by death and the hatred that Bruce knows in his bones resides in every city, in every being.

Bruce hunches his shoulders as the priest keeps on talking, and all he wants is his parents, all he wants is Dad's kind voice and Mom's warm hugs.

All he wants is for time to turn around so that Bruce can stop his parents from going down that dark, grimy alley.

Bruce wonders, a little bitterly, if that man with the silver gun in his shaking hand knows just how much it hurts to lose his parents. Wonders if he knows just how much pain he caused just by panicking and pulling that trigger.

Bruce stands in the rain with Alfred Pennyworth at his side, and that fire inside him is as bright as it was the moment Bruce knelt in his parents’ blood in a ugly alley in one of the sickest cities with the murderer long gone into the night, and Bruce doesn't think it will ever go out.

 

...

 

After that, Bruce loses count how many times he sees graves, but he never forgets the first two times.

But right now Bruce is staring as another little boy falls to his knees in his parents blood, tears running down his cheeks as he reaches out, begging for them to wake, to be okay, _please-_

Right now Bruce is charging down the stairs in the bleachers, eyes locked on that little boy, and he can see that spark so like his own in that crystal blue, and as Bruce hugs the last remaining Flying Grayson, as he stares at the scarlet remains, he hopes that this child won't turn out the same way he had.

(One of the most memorable times Bruce has seen a grave is in the rain, a little boy sobbing as his parents’ corpses are lowered into the ground, and this time Bruce can lift that little boy with that fire in his chest into his arms and shield him from the world the best he can.

This time, Bruce swears as he snarls at a reporter, _this_ time, a little boy won't be so destructive. This time, the little boy who lost his parents will be protected and loved, and he won't want the weight of the cowl.

This time, things will go _right.)_  

 

_..._

Bruce meets Jason Todd when Dick’s moved out and he isn't like Bruce, and Bruce meets Jason Todd when Jason almost steals his tires.

There's that familiar rage in Jason's eyes, the same one Bruce sees in the mirror everyday, and he can see this little boy standing as his mother is in a casket, trying not to cry, and thinking that maybe he can get back at the ones who hurt her.

Bruce looks at this little boy who barely comes up to his waist with that look in his face that says he won't go down without a fight, and envelops him in his cape.

Jason Todd won't turn out like him.

Jason Todd will become something better than him, like Dick did, only he'll become whatever he wants, and still be worth more than anyone.

Jason Todd comes home with Bruce, and Bruce refuses to lose this brilliant child to the shadows.

(Jason takes him to see his mother's grave, and Bruce stands in silence as he reads the words _Catherine Todd,_ and he says, “I'll take care of him.”

Jason comes back arms laden with flowers, and Bruce steps back until Jason grabs him by the hand and tells the gravestone that _This is Bruce, Mom, he's really nice, and way more nice than Dad, and-)_

(Bruce stands in front of a grave with the words _Jason Todd_ carved into the stone, and struggles not to scream.

Jason should not have died, Jason should have _lived,_ Jason should have moved on from being Robin and become something dazzling, but sometimes life doesn't go the way it should.

Bruce grits his teeth and puts Jason's uniform up in the cave, and he puts _A Good Soldier_ on a gold plaque, and he hates the words, but it serves a reminder.

Children are children. Irreplaceable, loved, and the best damn thing that's ever happened to this planet. They are not soldiers.

Soldiers are prepared to die for a cause.

Bruce himself is a solider, but Jason was not.

Jason was not a soldier, but he still died for something he believed in, and Bruce thinks that he should give Jason this.

This, at least, tells Bruce, everyday, that lives are not to be messed with.

Children are children.

They should not be soldiers.)

 

...

 

Bruce Wayne meets Tim Drake when he stands in front of his door with piles of evidence of who he is during the night, when Tim Drake looks up at him and says, “You need a Robin.”

Bruce doesn’t need-he doesn’t want a Robin.

Robins are child soldiers, ones who put on a uniform too soon and get injured, get killed wearing a mask with no one but Alfred and Bruce to know the person behind it.

The role of Robin-it shouldn’t have even been created.

Bruce understands that now.

But Tim Drake is standing in front of him with that glint in his eyes that says he’ll do whatever it takes, and if that means suiting up without permission, without training, he will do it, and that scares Bruce.

It scares him so much.

So he lets Tim Drake put on the uniform, lets him put on that mask, and watches him so carefully that Tim Drake almost never gets close to the Joker.

Joker laughs and laughs, and Bruce punches him until he stops.

The glass case with the gold words stays.

(Tim Drake almost dies.

Tim Drake’s bed almost becomes a hole in the dirt, and Bruce can’t let that happen, not again.

Jason Todd died being Robin until his very last breath, and Bruce is glad when Tim’s forced to stop being Robin.)

(Then Tim’s father dies, and Bruce is at Tim’s shoulder at the funeral, and he curses death for saving Tim’s life and then taking his father away.)

(Tim keeps on almost dying, and Bruce-

Bruce is thankful, every day that he wakes up, that Tim Drake’s heart is beating in his young, young chest.)

(Tim Drake still has that glint in his eyes, that fire in his heart, and Bruce wishes it isn't there.)

 

...

 

Stephanie Brown has a villain father and a mother that she wants to protect, and a sense of justice just as strong as any one of Bruce’s family.

She emerges as Spoiler, a enigma in purple, who only comes when Cluemaster escapes.

She gets injured, and there’s graves in her family, but that somehow makes her stronger.

Spoiler becomes Robin, for a short while, and while Bruce has never wanted a Robin after Jason, he likes her.

He just wants her to stop fighting the criminals, lest she ends up the same as Jason, the same as those trying to battle the rot of Gotham, and he doesn’t know how to say it.

But then-

But then she gets captured.

She gets captured, and Bruce remembers when Jason was kidnapped, when he was tortured by the Joker for no other reason than he was Robin, and he searches the city for her, hoping that she isn’t dead, hoping that she isn’t gone, hoping that Stephanie Brown doesn’t disappear from this world.

She escapes, and relief more intense than Bruce expects crashes into him, almost makes him fall to his knees, and he rushes to Leslie Thompkins clinic.

She dies wearing Robin’s colors with Bruce holding her hand, and he rages against the world, because another child has been lost to Bruce’s crusade, and he never wanted a partner, never wanted to ruin another’s life other than his own, but-

But it’s too late for that.

Bruce clutches Stephanie Brown’s hand as he presses a kiss to her forehead, wishing her a safe passage into a peaceful place, and he mourns her.

He destroys Black Mask’s operation within a week.

(He finds-

He finds out that Leslie could have saved Stephanie Brown.

He looms over her with fury in his chest and power in his arms, and he demands why he didn’t save her.

 _I wanted you to give up being Batman,_ she says, and Bruce punches the wall.

 _Don’t you see,_ he roars, because _why didn’t she understand?_

She caused a bright girl, a wonderful human being who only wanted to help, to _die._

 _How could you?_  Bruce wants to shout, and he growls deep in his throat.

How could Leslie Thompkins play God, and decide who dies and who lives on a whim.

Bruce knows that he could never give up the cowl-it’s in his blood by now, but he would have shut down Robin and Spoiler and any other child trying to be like him, and Bruce thinks that if he wants to destroy his life that’s his decision, but she doesn’t get to refuse to save someone because she wants to halt him in his tracks.

He is Bruce Wayne, the man who created Batman, and _nobody_ stopped him from doing it.

He exiles Leslie Thompkins from America, and with tears in her eyes, she does as she’s told.

Bruce collapses into a chair and his grief and anger is overwhelming.

Stephanie Brown lost her life because of him, and when he stands at her funeral, when he stands in front of her gravestone, he clenches his fist, and swears that Black Mask and Cluemaster will forever remain in jail while holding back tears, because he’s so sorry.

He’s so sorry.)

(Stephanie Brown comes back, and Bruce hugs her, holds her close, and he forbids her from ever doing anything like this again.

He stands in front of her grave again and breathes a little easier.)

 

...

 

Tim is back as Robin, Stephanie is alive, and Bruce feels like the world has finally given him a break.

Then Red Hood comes, and Bruce tries to keep them safe, keep his family safe, and he fails.

Tim almost dies.

There’s _red red red_ and he’s laying on the ground in his red red red uniform, and Bruce is almost frightened to touch him, almost too scared to see if he has a pulse.

But he does, and it saves Tim’s life, and so Bruce turns his attention to Red Hood.

There’s so much red in Bruce’s life.

Red Hood calls him old man and taunts him, and Bruce throws his all into this fight, this battle, because he almost lost another child, another person he loves, and he refuses to let Red Hood get away with it.

But then-

But then.

Red Hood turns out to be Jason, and all Bruce wants to do is take him home, take him to meet the new members of his family.

All Bruce wants is for his son to come home.

But Jason Todd is _mad,_ full of rage and fire, and he’s armed with guns and explosives, and his beautiful eyes are hurt as he shouts at Bruce for choosing the Joker’s life, and Bruce has to stop himself from screaming back _he’s only alive because if I killed him I would never stop._

Bruce has the makings of an assassin, a meticulous murderer, and he has the training to do it.

Jason _knows_ this.

The Joker lives, and Jason is gone, and Bruce wants to fall to the ground on his knees and beg Jason to come back, because he’s lost him for so, so _long,_ and Bruce just-

Bruce just wants his son back.

(Jason doesn’t stay away, and he has another bone to pick, this time about Tim, and Bruce tries to tell him that he never even wanted another sidekick, never wanted another partner after his death, but Tim Drake is someone that will do whatever it takes, and Bruce couldn’t lose another to the city that just takes and takes.

Jason doesn’t let him finish.)

(Bruce stands in front of Jason Todd’s grave with a shovel in his hands, and he digs and digs until he reaches the coffin underneath, and he feels sick when he sees the blood and fingernails scattered on the wood.

Jason Todd should have woken up in a bed.

Not in a coffin.)

 

...

 

Cassandra Cain comes to Gotham when she was only seventeen, dirt under her fingernails and not a word escaping her lips.

She has a killer for a father and a monster for a mother, and no blood on her hands, but she almost did, and that's what horrifies her.

She comes to Gotham when it's practically hell on Earth, when she's spent ten years on her toes, seeing the truth in every movement, remembering the first time she saw death every second, and Barbara sees her, and takes her in.

Cassandra Cain is light on her feet, and she has that familiar fire, and Bruce watches her when he can.

She has trouble, sometimes, but so did Bruce when he was starting out, and he doesn't blame her.

When Barbara approaches him about her becoming Batgirl, Bruce says yes.

(When he finds out what happened to her, he promptly takes David Cain and slams him into a wall, because Cain is her _father._

Bruce tells him to stay the _fuck_ out of Gotham, and _away_ from his daughter, and Cain-

Cain agrees.

Bruce is savagely pleased.)

(Cass learns how to speak, and suddenly she's thrown off balance, lost and confused, because she can't fight anymore, can't see the world like she always has, and Bruce refuses to let her go fight.

She can't _defend herself,_ and that's what frightening, because-

Because Jason has already died, and though he may have come back, he still _died._

Bruce doesn't know if Cass will do the same.)

(Lady Shiva stops his daughter's heart for _minutes._

Cass lived, but her heart _stopped._

She almost had a hole in the ground as her home, and it _terrifies him._

Bruce holds Cass close, presses his face into her hair as they rock side to side, and he almost doesn't let her go.)

(Cass becomes Black Bat and Steph Batgirl, and Bruce waves her goodbye with a sad smile as she goes to Hong Kong.

Cass will be fine, he tells himself, and doesn't quite believe it.)

 

...

 

Damian al Ghul-Wayne explodes into Bruce's life with a sword and a smirk.

He has blood on his hands and piles of bodies behind him and graves rising from the ground by his actions, and he's brittle in a way that Bruce understands.

Damian is frightened and trying not to show it, trained yet not ready for the world, and he's shoved his heart down to protect it.

Damian is self destructive, and he brings it to a new height, and he only wants Bruce's approval.

Bruce might not approve of his methods, but he's _proud_ of Damian.

He just doesn't know how to show it.

But Damian is his son, and that makes him family, and Bruce refuses to let him go back to Talia and create more headstones and grieving families, refuses to let him go back and shatter.

So Damian stays.

Damian stays, and Bruce is catapulted into the past, and he just-

He just wants to stay with his family, but he didn't have a choice, will never have a choice, and so when Tim comes and gets him looking exhausted and so hopeful, Bruce tugs him into a hug, and he almost doesn't let go, because Tim Drake is also his child and he hasn't seen him in what feels like in an eternity.

Bruce comes home to Damian being better than he was before, Dick smiling more, and Jason with less anger.

(Stephanie Brown laughs and tells him that he's such a hypocrite, leaving and making everyone think he's dead. Bruce smiles and ruffles her hair a bit, and takes her out for lunch.

Stephanie is his daughter; he thinks that it's right for him to do that.)

(Cass simply pats his arm, signs _missed you,_ and buries her face in his shoulder.

Bruce holds on just as desperately.)

Bruce comes home, and he has his family around him for just a bit, just long enough for Bruce to make sure they're all okay, and then Dick is gone, and Damian is _devastated._

Bruce almost calls Dick back when he sees it, but Damian looks him in the eyes and says _no._

So Bruce doesn't, and he grows closer to his son, and Bruce loves him even more by the day, by the hour, and he didn't even think that's possible, didn't even think that his heart could hold so much love, and he thinks that-

He thinks that he's happy that he has such a big family now.

(Talia orders a hit on their precious son, and he's not even surprised at the fear he feels.

He's lost Jason, almost lost Steph and so many others that he simply cannot lose any more of his loved ones.

Bruce doesn't think he'd be able to handle it.)

(Bruce stands in front of Damian's grave with white fists, and his mind is tearing in two, one clamoring for vengeance, to do _something about this,_ and the other is sinking into grief, into the rage that Bruce knows so well, and that flame in his chest is a roaring forest fire, a battlefield of neverending heat, and he let's it wash over him and closes his eyes as a child's phantom touch brushes over his wrist.)

(Bruce hurts his family, he knows this, but-

But they're incomplete without Damian, and Bruce _will not_ stand for another second without him, and so when he stands in front of Damian's grandfather with his eyes locked on Damian's sarcophagus, he doesn't waver.)

(He gets Damian back, and he clutches his son to his chest, and he can feel his shoulders shaking and jerking as he cries, and he looks over Damian's shoulder at his kids-and they're so _grown_ now, when did that happen- and smiles for what feels like in forever, and says, “Thank you.”)

 

...

 

Chaos comes and goes, and through it all Bruce holds a death grip over his family, refuses to lose them again even for a second, and one day he wakes up and he has no family.

He doesn't even know who he is, really, because how can he be who he was with no memories to make him up, but he thinks that he's missing someone, someone important, and he just doesn't know who.

He thinks that, maybe, he was happy before.

He thinks that he should know why his fists clench and he aches to hit something when any of the villains are out, why he wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks that his shoulders should be weighted down, why he grinds his teeth and snarls as he sees an injustice happen, or when the Bats get hurt.

He thinks that he should know why he scoffs at Batman and thinks, _he should've done this-_

He thinks he should know why his first reaction is to throw a punch.

He thinks a lot of things.

He doesn't get any answers.

(When he's hugged by that strange man, something inside him had sat up, had taken notice, had whispered _Jason,_ and he thinks that he should know who Jason is, but he doesn't.

He thinks that he should feel something other than confusion.)

 

...

 

Bruce has his memories back, and by god will he gather his family together again, he won't let anything stop him.

He's Bruce Wayne, and he's the father to so many, and he realizes that it's been awhile since he's thought of himself as just Batman, and he thinks that it started years ago in that circus tent.

But he gets his children back home, and he makes sure that they know that he _loves them._

And he does. He loves them so so much, and he may not have voiced it all that often, but it's the truth, something that's been churning and rolling in his chest for over a decade, and he regrets that it's only now that he's saying it.

(But he's getting better at the talking, according to Alfred, and that makes him ridiculously proud, to the point where he pulls his children in his arms the best he can, and tells them all that he loves them.

It's worth the way they squirm and can't really fit.)

 

...

 

Duke Thomas’ parents aren't in a grave, but they might as well be, and Duke knows it.

There's a stone wall in his eyes, an immovable acceptance of his situation, and he has the _R_ on his chest, not given, and he wears a rest vest instead of a armored tunic.

There's a thought that tugs at Bruce's mind whenever he sees a teenager running in red, and he already knows what it is before he even acknowledges it.

He became Batman so that kids wouldn't have to fight, to get hurt, and yet they go out with no training and get injured.

Bruce grits his teeth and gathers them into a warehouse, and he tells them with no compromise in his voice that they need to _stop._

They protest and Bruce tells them that two Robins have died already, and they were _trained._

 _“Y_ ou,” he tells them, “you are not trained. You will be targeted because of the fact that you call yourselves Robin. You will _die.”_

They still object, and Bruce raises himself to his full height and spits, “Have you not lived in Gotham? This city will devour you; you will be killed because Gotham is old and dangerous, and welcomes the insane. It's the reason the Joker is here.”

They shiver, and Bruce drives the point home, voice rumbling like thunder. “These villains are nothing like the thieves you've caught at the price of wounds that could turn fatal, and they _will not hesitate.”_ Bruce watches as realization rises in their eyes, and narrows his in return. “Gotham may be safer than it may have ever been, but it is by no means Metropolis. Few stay good people in Gotham. Fewer still help. Do not lose your life because you wish to stop a few petty criminals.”

Bruce leaves, and the Robin movement stops.

Duke Thomas still goes out, because he has that flicker of heat in his gaze, something that only grows and grows as he sneaks out of his foster home, and Bruce _has_ to call him in, because he will be _killed-_

Duke Thomas tells him with no hesitation that he will not be another Robin.

Bruce thinks of the little boy upstairs, of the way he fought and bled and died to get where he is now, to get to be _Robin,_ and Bruce takes a deep breath, looks Duke Thomas right in the eyes and says, “No, you will not be Robin.”

(There's an edge to the words, a deadly promise, because Damian has worked so hard, hurt so much, and Bruce will not let anything take Robin away from him until he decides otherwise.

If Damian wants to be Robin until he's twenty, then so be it. If he wants to stop now, Bruce won't stop him.)

(Bruce hates the We Are Robin movement.

The _R_ that his children held close, the way that it was _special,_ reserved for only those who have _earned it-_

Now, anyone can put it on and be a Robin.

Damian's hurt by it-Bruce can see the way he sometimes clutches the symbol, the way that he clenches his fists, because _he's_ Robin; he _earned_ it, and yet-

And yet it no longer holds the prestige it once did, and he can't.

Damian can't help the way he thinks.

He thinks like this.

_If anyone can become Robin, where is my place?_

Yes, Bruce hates the We Are Robin movement.)

(Duke Thomas becomes Lark, becomes his son, and Bruce has never been more grateful than when he finally understands that a person can't just go fight.

Duke could have died, and that scares Bruce, because if he was a day late, then Duke wouldn't be here.

He crushes that train of thought. Duke is here, he is alive, and-

“Bruce, help!” Dick cries, and Bruce snaps back to reality to see Dick buried under the pile that's his siblings being annoyances.

Bruce chuckles, looks him right in the eyes, and says “No.”

Dick let's out a wail of betrayal as his younger siblings cheer in their own ways, and drive their elbows into him wherever they can, and Bruce smiles and returns to his book.)

 

...

 

In the end, graves haunt Bruce, a future and past constant, and yet-

And yet he can't seem to care, not when Dick laughs as he leaps from a skyscraper, sending Bruce's heart into his throat; when Jason finally walks up to him and shows him that there's only rubber bullets, and Bruce can finally hug him without Jason cursing; when Tim looks at him, tired and exhausted and triumphant, and Bruce can send him to bed with a little nudge; when Steph buys him a terrible tie, and cackles when he wears it to a meeting; when Cass tugs him into a dance and gives a bell like giggle as he complies; when Damian smiles at him, tiny and happy, and Bruce ruffles his hair as he plays with his pets; when Duke perfects a move he's been working on, and looks to him with a shining grin, and Bruce can say _good job._

When Bruce can look around him, and instead of just seeing what's wrong, he also sees what's _right._

Graves intertwine with his footsteps, make it hard to breathe sometimes, but his family is always there to help draw them away.

And that's all Bruce can ask for, really.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and brighten up my day and are saved in my Gmail.
> 
> Also! Here's my [Tumblr.](http://nikescaret.tumblr.com) Come visit and chat with me if you want!


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